American Campus Equity (ACE™) Program

The Challenge

Many institutions don’t have the financial capacity to address their housing needs while funding new academic, research and ancillary capital projects. Meanwhile, rating agencies are determining that many of the previous “off-balance sheet” student housing transactions are not “off-credit”, negatively impacting debt capacity.

The Solution

The American Campus’s Equity (ACE™) Program is the optimal solution for universities looking to develop or sell student housing while preserving their credit capacity to fund core infrastructure.

The ACE™ Program

• A substantial portion of total development/ acquisition cost is funded with ACC equity; therefore, a much smaller amount of total project cost is debt. Simply put, our equity can’t count against your debt/ credit capacity.
  
  
• ACC’s direct ownership of the project, financial strength as a public company and large equity position will positively impact how the rating agencies view the transaction from a credit perspective.
  
  
• ACC serves as your sole partner. We bring our own equity, not that of a third-party. This means that we are your financial, development and operating partner, and are fully vested in the project’s long term success. A developer with third-party or joint venture equity may not be the final decision-maker on the transaction structuring, financial and operational matters.
  
  
• ACC does not charge development/acquisition or transactional fees on ACE™ projects. This aligns us with the university as our financial return is not derived from fees, but earned through long term cash flows and the benefits of ownership.
  
  
• Our ability to fund significant pre-closing expenses creates efficiencies that lead to an expedited timeline and project delivery.

ACE™ Case Study
Vista del Sol; 1866 on-campus beds; Arizona State University

Construction commenced January 2007 Opens Fall 2008 First of three phases containing 5,000 beds The ACE program was a key factor in our selection of American Campus for two primary reasons: it gives us the ability to preserve our debt capacity for our core academic infrastructure; and with American Campus serving as our sole partner without charging front end fees, our interests are aligned in every aspect of the project.        — Carol Campbell       ASU Chief Financial Officer